


Forest: A Tree Bros Fic

by spellboundnora



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, I think that's everything, It's bad, M/M, as you can tell this is gonna be real fucking sad, at least they get a happy ending sort of, because that's all i fucking write, blood tw, i love torturing characters but i can't find it within me to not give them a happy ending, i mean it's not the most graphic i've ever seen but it's the most graphic i've ever written, it's basically just about suicide, really fucking graphic descriptions of suicide, this is very suicidal, tree bros angst, tw for anxiety and depression, tw for intrusive thoughts and mentions of school shootings, tw for mental breakdowns, tw for panic attacks, tw for razor blades pills and jumping, tw for slight homophobia, tw for weed? is that a thing, uhh big tw for suicide, which isn't saying a lot because i don't write about this shit a lot but still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 18:21:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15646335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spellboundnora/pseuds/spellboundnora
Summary: It's two am on a Tuesday when Connor pulls into the park with the intention of going deep into the forest and not coming back out. But the forest holds secrets of its own and extraordinary coincidences.





	Forest: A Tree Bros Fic

Connor's POV

I pulled up to the park in a haze. I glanced out the driver’s side window, noticing another car a few spaces down. Briefly, I wondered who else would be here at two am on a Tuesday morning, but the thought was lost in the fact that the rest of my mind was screaming. The nearly-full bottle of pain pills felt too heavy in the right pocket of my sweatpants, though the razor blade in my left felt as if they weren’t there at all. To steady myself, I pulled a joint out of the cup holder that I used as an ashtray and took a long drag. It had the opposite effect of what I intended though and just made me disconnect, the swirling storm of intrusive thought dredging up bad memories from some repressive abyss and dragging them to the forefront of my mind. 

The day two months ago when my sister caught me kissing a boy from another school under the bleachers during a football game, citing that she knew I would never come to a football game to actually watch the teams play, and later outed me to our parents. The shock on my mother’s face, and the stony look on my father’s. The patronizing tone of my mother when she tried to justify herself raising a gay son. “You can’t be gay, nobody really knows at your age, Connor.” The constant arguments I’ve had with both Zoe and her, the time I caught her flushing my antidepressants down the toilet, ranting at me that she had read that they were unhealthy and didn't work and that I could be cured by eating her stupid paleo diet, getting plenty of exercise, and "thinking good thoughts." The countless other instances that have sent me into a rage, screaming matches with my father, him never understanding who I am and just wanting a manlier, sportier son than I could ever be. The insults screamed at me in the halls, being called “school shooter chic” by Jared fucking Kleinman. The intrusive thoughts shooting through my brain at any given moment, homicidal ones, suicidal ones, telling me to stab myself with a pencil, telling me that I’ve put up with enough of Jared’s shit and that I should prove him right by shooting up the damn school. I’ve scared myself with the things my mind produces too many times. So I decided to shut it up for good. 

Just this evening, thunderclouds of suicidal thoughts booming as my shaking hands unscrewed Zoe’s stolen pencil sharpener for the blade, throwing away the rest and covering it with a wadded-up paper towel so no one would notice it was there. Quietly opening the medicine cabinet and taking out the bottle of Advil. Pretending I was going to go to sleep when in reality I just laid there, staring at the ceiling, my thoughts going too fast for me to really even process most of them. I knew tonight was the night. Checking my phone four times. 12:07AM. 12:45AM. 1:29AM. 1:52AM. There. Zoe wasn't awake anymore. It was pretty easy to tell that she’d finally gone to bed because I couldn’t hear the classical music she always plays when she’s studying for a test. I sat up in my bed, and felt inside both of my pockets, receiving a small cut on my finger that started to bleed a little, but reassured my the blade was still there. I crept out of the room, down the hall, and somehow made it out the front door. The car ride to the park was completely silent, which was uncommon for me, as I usually play music when driving to give me something else to focus on besides my own thoughts, but this time I let them overtake me.

The plan: sit underneath my favorite tree there, an old, dead thing that had been struck by lightning a few years ago and bore magnificent scars from it. Add two new scars to the collection on my wrists, these ones not nearly as beautiful as the ones the tree has, but much deeper than I’d ever gone before. Chug the bottle of pills just to make sure something still gets the job done if they’re not deep enough. I’d had an attempt before, and it wasn’t fun waking up in the hospital when you were supposed to be dead, so I wanted to make sure everything would be final this time. And let go. I had no note because I had no one to read it. The only person I’d ever gotten close enough to call a friend was the boy Zoe had caught me kissing, and we drifted apart after that day. I still saw him on Instagram sometimes, he looked happier. Had a new boyfriend, came out of the closet to a supportive family. I wonder what it would be like to have a nice life like that.

I shook myself out of my reminiscing, reminding myself that I had a job to do. I lifted my hands from the steering wheel and noticed a small blood stain from where my cut finger had been gripping it too hard. Normally that would make me a little pissed, but it didn’t matter anymore. I wouldn’t live long enough to see it again. I unbuckled my seatbelt and stepped out of the car. Slamming the driver’s side door with a little too much effort, I knew there was no going back. I turned and started walking down the path that took me into the forest that I would never return from. 

The walk to my tree normally took about fifteen minutes, but it felt like hours by the time I got to a clearing that I knew to divert from the path and walk directly into the trees. I should be only five minutes away. Five minutes until I can shut myself down. Let my battery die out and never turn back on, like my old iPhone that stopped working one day with no explanation. Finally, I could see the tree in the distance. And something I almost dismissed as a hallucination, before remembering that I’d barely smoked. In another tree nearby, there was a figure at the very top. Just a black shadowy outline of what appeared to be human. There was no reason for anyone to be here, especially this far from the path. And then the figure took flight. No. Jumped. Jumped and fell hurtling down to the ground at a speed that seemed unnatural. I almost wondered if it was some kind of demon, some supernatural being here to kill me or taunt me with images I didn’t want to see. I felt my feet move towards the tree before I even thought of checking to see if it was a real person. I was running, the pills rattling in the bottle in my pocket.

It was a human, a kid about my age. Lying face down on the ground was a sandy-haired boy in a blue polo. It took me a moment to place him, but I knew I recognized him from somewhere. Ecology class last year. He sat all the way up at the front and knew the answer to almost every question. Absolutely demolished the curve on that final. About three people threatened to beat him up after that, not sure if anyone ever did because I really didn’t give that much of a shit. God, what was his name? Ethan? Elliot? Evan. Yeah, that was it. He always seemed stable enough. Sure, he was a stuttering mess in class, and the one time I worked on a lab with him, he looked positively terrified of me, but I’m used to people occasionally looking a little scared of me, usually from exaggerated rumors passed around the school about my temper. Funny, how he seemed to love trees so much that he threw himself off of one. Because there was no passing this off as an accident. Even if it wasn’t two am on a Tuesday morning, I saw him jump. There was no way it wasn’t purposeful.

I snapped out of my thoughts yet again, with one loud voice telling me that I should see if he’s dead. If he’s dead, I’ll go find somewhere else in the forest to die. If he’s not… Well, I may as well check. I crouched down and, having no better ideas of what to do, poked him in the cheek. No response. I decided to roll him over on his back so I could check his pulse on his wrist. He had pinned one of his arms underneath him as he landed, and it didn’t look normal as I propped him up against a nearby sapling. I grabbed his other wrist, noticing scratch marks on it. I used to do that too but found razor blades more effective. I placed my thumb on the blue veins, and, though it took me a minute to focus, I could feel a faint heartbeat. Fuck. Now what the hell am I supposed to do? I can’t leave him here, he could wake up and accidentally find me, ruining my plans for the morning. A small voice said that I also couldn’t leave him because I’d feel terrible leaving a kid out in the woods, alive but unconscious, to meet who knows what of a fate. I hated myself for thinking it, but it would’ve been so much easier if he was dead. An intrusive thought told me that I could just slit his throat here, that he wanted to die anyway, and it would make sure I could die in peace. The police would find us in a few days, perhaps, but they couldn’t arrest me if I was dead. I reeled back, taking a few steps away from him. No, I couldn’t do that. I wasn’t a monster, though the voices in my head apparently wanted me to be.

I crouched back down near the boy, trying to figure out what to do next. I needed to take him to the hospital, as hypocritical as it was, I wanted to make sure he was okay, physically and mentally. Obviously, he wasn’t okay in either of those or else he wouldn’t be unconscious on the ground after a suicide attempt. I tried shaking him awake. It didn’t work. Growing desperate, I did the only thing I could think of and slapped him in the face. Surprisingly, it worked.

“What the fuck.”

“Hi.”

“No. No there’s no way this is actually happening. I’m dead, and this is purgatory. Or else I’m dreaming this whole damn thing and this is definitely turning into a nightmare. There’s no way that someone’s waking me up from what should have killed me.”

“Nope. You’re alive, and this is real, whether you want it to be or not.”

“No. No. God damn it, no. I refuse to accept that you’re just here. That you’re just fucking around in the forest to save my fucking life. I should’ve been a goner. I should’ve died. Why are you here? You need to leave. Just leave and let me do this again. I’ll find a different tree, I’ll climb higher! Why can’t I feel my arm?”

“It looks like it might be broken.”

“So I can’t climb back up can I? I probably couldn’t use this arm to get more than a few feet up in a tree, could I? I can’t die, can I? WHY CAN’T I DIE? WHY WON’T YOU LET ME DIE?”

He started sobbing loudly as I sat there, frozen. I’ve never had to deal with anyone having a mental break besides myself before. I have no idea what to do. I gently put my hand on his shoulder, not sure what else to do, and that’s all it took. He collapsed onto my chest, still sobbing, and I tentatively put my arms around him, not sure if I was doing the right thing. We stayed like that for a few minutes, me saying nothing, just letting him cry it out. I would occasionally hear him mumble something about death, but it was hard to make out in his sobs. Eventually, he sat back up, his eyes red and sniffling, a few stray tears making their way out.

“I’m sorry. I ruined your hoodie, and I’m sure you didn’t want to have a stranger cry on you. I’ve always been too emotional.”

“Look, it’s okay. I understand how it feels.”

“Still, I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”

“Don’t be sorry, you’re hurting a lot right now. I get it.”

He gave me a long look, surprise and gratitude in his eyes. And then- a flash of recognition.

“Connor Murphy?”

“The one and only. And you’re Evan. I don’t know your last name.”

“We were in Ecology last year together, weren’t we?”

“Yeah. Funny how that works out.”

“It’s more sad than funny, really.”

“I guess.”

A moment passed where we just sat in the dark, the moon our only source of light before he spoke up again

“Why are you here, Connor?”

“I told you I understood how you feel. I understand it too well. I’m here for the same reason as you. You just beat me to the punch.”

I looked down, not wanting to see the expression on his face. Not wanting the pity that I was sure was there. And then, impulsively, I grabbed the bottle of pills out of my pocket and threw it into the forest as far as I could. I grabbed the razor blades out of my pocket, wincing as they cut my hands. I felt a rage working up inside me, and did nothing to stop it. I held my hand out to him.

“THIS. THIS IS WHY I’M HERE. I WAS GOING TO SLIT MY WRISTS. CUT AS DEEP AS I COULD. I WAS GOING TO DOWN THE WHOLE BOTTLE OF PILLS, TOO, JUST TO MAKE SURE I DIDN’T FUCK IT UP LIKE I DID LAST TIME. BUT YOU HAD TO BEAT ME TO IT. THE UNIVERSE HAD TO THROW US TOGETHER LIKE THIS.”

Suddenly, his hands were on me. Gripping my arms, with his blue eyes staring into my brown ones. 

“Connor. Connor, it’s okay. You’re okay. Everything is going to be okay.”

“IT IS CLEARLY NOT OKAY BECAUSE WE’RE BOTH REALLY FUCKING SUICIDAL IN THE MIDDLE OF A FOREST.”

“It’s not okay now, but you’re going to be okay.”  
“Nothing about me will ever be okay, Evan. This isn’t some YA novel where you graduate high school and then suddenly you’re not suicidal anymore. I’m going to be like this my entire life, so why prolong my own misery?”

“Connor, please calm down.”

I could see the look of fear on his face, tears welling in his eyes, and I broke down.

“I never wanted this. I never wanted people to be scared of me. I never wanted to bottle things up and lash out at people. Please don’t be scared of me, Evan. I just want to be normal. All I’ve ever wanted is to be okay, but I never will be.”

I have no idea how much of that he heard, as I cried out everything in my head. And suddenly, it was me crying into his chest, when only a few minutes ago, it had been the other way around. His arms were around me, and it felt so nice. I didn’t really remember the last time I had gotten hugged, but the fact that he cared, or at least made it seem like he did, was the most comforted I’d felt in a long time. After a few minutes, I could feel him start to cry as well, and I tried to hold him as nicely as he was holding me.

We stayed like that for a long time, just the two of us crying into each other's arms. Two kids who the world had been too hard on, trying to patch themselves back up. When we ran out of tears to cry, stories came flowing out of our mouths, the ugliest times of our lives, laid out barren with no judgment, just acceptance and the occasional tear. I learned about his anxiety, his lack of true friends, his only “best friend” a family friend being paid to hang out with him, his always working mom and absent father, his deeply closeted bisexuality, his desire to just be a normal kid with friends and a social life. He learned more about me than I’ve ever told anyone and even a few things that I didn’t want even myself to admit to. 

We watched the sunrise and skipped school so that I could take him to the hospital. He got a cast and I was the first one to sign it. We were both tired as hell, physically and emotionally, so he said we could crash at his house, that his mom wouldn’t be home until late that night. We couldn’t get his couch to pull out, so tired and senseless, we crashed on his bed together. It felt surprisingly normal, like how in elementary school, I used to sleep over at a friend’s house, until they moved away and I never saw them again. 

I woke up sometime during the afternoon when he was still sleeping. It felt so nice to be that physically and emotionally close to a person, completely platonically. I hadn’t been physically close to anyone except for a few one-night stands I’d had in order to try to get myself to feel something, anything, that wasn’t terrible. It worked in the moment but overall made me feel empty when I had to leave in the morning. Here there was no expectation of anything happening, no thought in the back of my mind that I would have to leave and it would all be over. It was just… pure. It was innocent, uncorrupted. The only thing in my life that was. I smiled genuinely, for the first time in a long while, and went back to sleep.

I awoke again in the evening. The sun was still up, but it was beginning to set, and I felt warm. I then realized why I felt warm. I was spooning Evan. Holy shit. Nope. Nope. Can’t have this. My brain immediately went into hyperdrive on how to extract myself from the situation. I couldn’t make anything weird. If he woke up and I was still spooning him, it would make things awkward. He’d think I had romantic feelings for him, or worse, know how touch starved I am. If that happened, he would stop talking to me because he would feel weird and wouldn’t be able to handle it. And then he’d eventually get talked into telling all of my secrets to Jared, who’d use them to make my life even more hell than it was already. Then everyone would know everything about me, and someone would get fake concerned and report me to the school nurse and I’d get put into a mental hospital again and I just can’t go through that again. They’re gonna drug me up again but this time they’ll find a reason to keep me until I’m eighteen and then they can make up that I’m more fucked up than I am if they even need to, and they’ll keep me forever. I’ll be forever drugged up and sedated until a nurse starts forgetting to feed me and I’ll slowly die of starvation if the drugs coursing through my veins don’t kill me from long-term exposure first. Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh-

“Connor, you’re shaking. What’s wrong?”

And for the second time that day, I burst into tears. I felt myself being sat up, and immediately I pulled my knees up toward my body.

“Okay, Connor, I think you’re having a panic attack. Can you name five things you can see?”

“Your-your eyes. The black nail polish on my fingernails. The poster on your wall. The blue sheets on your bed. The sunset outside your window.”

“Okay, good. Now three things you can hear.”

“Your voice. The birds outside. My breathing. I’m breathing too fast. Evan, I’m hyperventilating. I can’t stop. I don’t know how. I don’t think I’ve ever not been hyperventilating. Evan, help me.”

“You’re going to be okay. Just focus on me. Try to mimic my breathing.”

I watched him take deep slow breaths and tried to mimic them. The first few tries were shaking, but eventually, I could. And calming my breathing slowly calmed the rest of me, and I stopped shaking. My mind stopped racing. I was… okay. Usually, the way I got out of a panic attack was forcing myself to focus on something much less healthy, like screaming, or punching a wall, because I didn’t know how to get them to stop.

“Thank you. I’m sorry about that, I just kind of freaked out there. I didn’t really know there was a healthy way to stop those things. I didn’t know they were a thing other people did. My parents didn’t want me going to therapy, and I don’t really have the best knowledge of mental health.”

“It’s okay Connor. I’m surprised you don’t know about them though, they’re pretty common. I get them too sometimes. The best ways to get them to stop is to try to distract yourself with what’s around you, or to try to calm your breathing. Do you want to tell me what happened? You don’t have to, but if you want to, I’ll always listen.”

“I don’t know… it’s kind of embarrassing.”

“You don’t have to tell me, it’s alright.”

“I woke up, and I was spooning you, and I was afraid I was going to make everything awkward between us and you wouldn’t like me and it just spiraled out of control.”

He didn’t say anything, he just reached over and pulled me into one of his hugs and it was warm and perfect and wonderful and he pulled back and looked at me with his big blue eyes and a sad smile on his face.

“Connor, you don’t have to worry about things getting awkward. Trust me, I’m the most awkward person on the planet, so as long as you can deal with me, I’m sure nothing you do could make me not like you. You’re just… so lovely.”  
He then blushed deeply, which was probably the cutest thing I’d ever seen, and then my brain ruined the moment and said, you’re incredibly gay for him, you dumbfuck. And I was like, oh shit, yeah I am. And then I was like woah wait what did he say?

“Me, having to deal with you? Dude, you have gotten me through two mental breaks just today. You’re definitely the one who’s going to have to deal with me. Anyways, even if you calling me lovely was anywhere close to true, you are a thousand times more perfect than anything I could ever deserve.”

Oh shit, that was really gay. Why did I say those words? Holy fuck. Well, no turning back now. My face is red as fuck, his face is red as fuck, and we’re both just kinda staring into each other’s eyes like we’re not accidentally flirting with each other.

“Okay one, that’s not-that’s not true. You d-you deserve the world. And uh, well, you like, saved my life, so that’s gotta be, uh, better than me just… knowing how to, uh, stop-a-panic-attack.”

He’s a stuttering mess. Holy shit that’s so cute. This boy is pretty much the most adorable, wonderful thing I’ve ever come across and I one-hundred percent do not deserve him.

“If you want to make me believe that I really deserve you, you’re going to have to fight me.”

He very softly punches me in the chest.

“There, boom. I win. Yeah, definitely. You, uh, deserve so much… more than me.”

I roll over so that I’m on top of him, making sure to look out for his cast, smirking as he blushes even deeper.

“I can’t deserve more than you and the world all at once, because I’m pretty sure you are my entire world.”

Something in the back of my head says this is really weird to say to someone you pretty much just met 16 hours ago, but it gets drowned out by the rest of me trying to flirt and also freaking the fuck out but trying not to show it. I have no idea how to flirt, but I think I’m doing okay.

“I-uh-wow. That's, uh, really, nice. Uh thanks, you mean, um, a lot to me too.”

Oh shit, I can’t tell if he’s flustered or if I just made things awkward. But I can’t overthink it because all of a sudden I hear the door open.

“Evan- Oh!”

I quickly roll off of him. Both of us are deep crimson. It’s a woman who resembles Evan a little, most likely his mom.

“Well, you two kids be safe in there! And maybe remember to lock your door next time!”

With that, she leaves the room and shuts the door behind her. We just lay there in silence until suddenly, I can’t take it anymore and burst out laughing. And Evan’s laughing too and we just laugh and laugh until we’re crying with laughter and then we’re just looking at each other and wondering how the hell we got into this situation.

“Okay, wow. I’ll say it, you’re cute as hell and I would one-hundred percent love to kiss you right now-“

And I get cut off by him kissing me. And wow. Wow. It’s nothing like I’ve ever experienced before. Any time a one night stand has wanted to kiss me, it’s been rough and passionate and tasted like sweat and hasn’t been explicitly bad, but this is so different, and so much better. It’s slow and sweet and tentative and tastes so nice. It feels like I could stay like this forever and never need to breathe again, but my body catches up with my brain and I’m reminded that yes, I do need to breath, so I break away.

“Holy shit. That was… amazing.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, but we need to figure out what we are and what we’re doing. Because that was the most amazing this that I might have ever felt, but we know pretty much nothing about each other except our darkest bits and that’s probably not the foundation of a lasting… whatever this is.”

“You’re right. We need to get to know each other. How about we just take it slow for a while, at least a few weeks, and get to know the slightly more stable versions of ourselves, and then we can re-evaluate where we are and what we’re doing and figure ourselves out.”

“That sounds like the absolute best idea I’ve ever heard.”

So that’s what we’re going to do. It’s been a couple days, and we’ve exchanged numbers and have pretty much been texting each other nonstop. I learned his last name (Hansen), his favorite color (blue, as if I couldn’t have guessed), what he wants to do with his life (be some kind of tree scientist), and so much more information than normal friends know about each other. I painted his nails after school once, (black, but only because it’s the only color I have), told him about how I want to get my ears pierced, and even introduced him to Zoe, who was surprised I’d actually made a friend and made sure to voice that surprise loudly and in a sarcastic tone. It’s been really nice. I can feel myself falling for him, but the knowledge that he’s there to catch me whenever we’re both ready is so comforting.


End file.
